JMS Hockey

It's been ages since I've been up to adding more skates to my week and now that I'm ready to play some JMS again, I see that there are ZERO games available into next week?

There are a bunch of games listed for the coming week. In fact, there are now games listed going out well beyond next week, if you click on "load more" at the bottom of the page listing the games for the coming week. Maybe there's something wrong with your browser?

I think he means that ordinarily, there used to be lots of spots open, even if you waited until the day before or even the day of ice time. The last 2-3 weeks, ice times have filled up fast and furious. Great for Barb, bad for those left out or the players who can't necessarily commit well ahead of time. I was hoping to play this week, had an ice time I had to cancel out of, and nothing is open ANYWHERE in JMS that I can do until late next week. :-( But, it is still my choice!

Right said Rob.

Reposting here from another thread: Yep, we want to offer more ice. But we also don't want to offer TOO much ice. The notify list for full games never has enough interested people to make up a second game. And nobody wants to go back to seeing games with 7 skaters the morning of gameday, getting those pleading e-mails from me and then having a game with only 15 people. So ponder the JMS offerings model: it's not sliding (if 32 people want to play a hockey game, then 32 people play a hockey game), it's a stairstep (if 32 people want to play a hockey game, either 22 play and 10 don't, or 22 play and 10 play, yiiikes on that second game). The stairstep model is why I'm always trying to balance teams when one LLCS has 14 (unhappy) skaters and the other is full at 22 with a wait list. But, usually because we don't book ice close enough to overlap, nobody wants to drive to even out the sessions with 18 per side. Looks easy on the surface? Good! But it's all complex once you start poking around. And additional from later: ADDITIONAL. Been thinking about this. Unfortunately, the SUCCESSFUL array of JMS offerings inevitably WILL have some people who want to play, but can't. Because of the stairstep model. We want all games to be full. If a game is full, how likely is it that EXACTLY 21 players want to skate? It's more likely that "full" means "21 + wait list." How would we have enough roster spots for EVERYONE who wants to play? By booking games until we have open roster spots (which show unfulfilled demand and we know that everyone who wants to skate is signed up). But open roster spots don't help pay for the ice. We are working really really hard to keep skater game prices low (haven't raised in 4? 5? years, despite most rinks raising prices twice every year). So we don't want to start charging skaters extra to pay for the empty roster spots. Make sense? I WANT to keep booking games so that everyone who wants to play, CAN play. But that is financially unwise and unsustainable. That said, when I saw the April 19 game at Roseville was FULL just 10 hours after posting, I added more ice for that night... :-)

One explanation for the skates filling up so fast is that the AHA season recently ended so a lot of those skaters are skating in JMS to get their weekly hockey fix. If my theory is correct, I would expect skates to start filling up slower again when the AHA summer season starts up in early June.

I totally think it's part of the ebb and flow. Like Chris said, hockey seasons have ended for AHA and other leagues. The weather is still "winter" outside... hence less outdoor activities that you would normally see in the spring. Once the weather gets nicer, I'd anticipate less skaters and goalies. Of course, Barb has been doing this for around 10 years, so she KNOWS!!!

Rob, I have got to tell you... this year has me flummoxed. You are RIGHT: we usually see a dip right around now. The weather gets warmer and people start playing softball, the regular season is over and our numbers drop. I had planned for that, tapering off our games so no more pleading e-mails from me, asking folks to sign up. Welp, NOW I am looking around for options, but ice usually needs to be booked in advance. So there's not a lot available NOW, but I'm working on stuff for (hopefully not too far) in the future. The first of those is now up (SLP for lower level folks on Wednesdays--starts May 1). I can't release any more details or comment further until stuff is booked, then it will announce with fanfare. (And I hope hope hope hope hope people sign up!)